Kenya’s Strathmore University Law Students Make History by Winning World Human Rights Moot Competition

Strathmore University has made history by becoming the first Kenyan institution of higher learning to win the Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition.

Strathmore was represented in the global competition by two law students, Eugene Kanyugo and Mariam Hiba Malik.

The two were declared the winner of the 12th edition of the Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition after defeating a team from Kenyatta University in the finals.

This is the first time in the past 10 years that a team from Africa has won the competition where at least 50 top-ranking universities from around the world participate.

Strathmore University beat Universidad Catolica of Bolivia in the semis while Kenyatta University defeated UK’s Oxford University to set the stage for an all-Kenyan final.

In the annual contest, law students from various universities are given a hypothetical human rights case to argue. This year’s competition was held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The two finalists argued their cases before a team of judges drawn from the International Criminal Court (ICC), the European Court of Human Rights, and the Global Campus of Human Rights.

The panel unanimously declared Eugene and Mariam the winners of the Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition, which is the biggest contest on the international human rights court in the world.

As a result, the two will receive two Peter Coenen Scholarships for a Summer International Human Rights Implementation Programme at the University of Lucerne in Switzerland.

In 2019, students from Strathmore University School of Law became the first African team to win the John H. Jackson Moot Court on World Trade Organization (WTO) Law.

The team of three students, namely Mishael Wambua, Kandalla Maleehah, and Catherine Penda, made history after beating Harvard Law School in the final of the competition held in Geneva, Switzerland.